


Of Flowers and Gold - The Changeling Prince

by beingextremelygay



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Parents, Arranged Marriage, Awkward Flirting, Boyfriends, Boys In Love, Changelings, Child Abuse, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Family Drama, Fantasy, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Gay Male Character, Horses, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Original Character(s), Original Universe, Princes & Princesses, Revolution, Royalty, Scandal, Slow Burn, hot little fairy boy, idiots to lovers, prince - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28971261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingextremelygay/pseuds/beingextremelygay
Summary: It is said that my mother, weeping for she could give her husband no child, went into the forest on a full moon to beg. The story says she knelt in front of a holy ancient tree, where the fairies are said to roam, and dug into the earth, muddying her golden gown. There her tears mixed, with the blood she offered, and then slept on the forest floor. When she woke, a single rose had grown in front of her.The fae, so moved by her plea, blessed her with a child. In some of the stories, there was no rose, but rather there I was on the forest floor with my mother. In others, she was suddenly pregnant, and to confirm my fairy blessing, all the palace gardens magically bloomed on the night of my birth. Some thought I was born with pointed ears which my father had cut off.I can’t confirm any of this, I wasn’t there for most of it. But the truth of the matter is that I was born the crown prince of Geralti, and the rumors had already started that I was a changeling.Kenzilon the Golden Boy. Named for the child of the Sun himself, who gifted the world with magic, warmth, music, and poetry. “Kenzilon the Fairy Prince” divisive before I even knew who I was.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Of Flowers and Gold - The Changeling Prince

It is said that my mother, weeping for she could give her husband no child, went into the forest on a full moon to beg. The story says she knelt in front of a holy ancient tree, where the fairies are said to roam, and dug into the earth, muddying her golden gown. There her tears mixed, with the blood she offered, and then slept on the forest floor. When she woke, a single rose had grown in front of her.

The fae, so moved by her plea, blessed her with a child. In some of the stories, there was no rose, but rather there I was on the forest floor with my mother. In others, she was suddenly pregnant, and to confirm my fairy blessing, all the palace gardens magically bloomed on the night of my birth. Some thought I was born with pointed ears which my father had cut off. 

I can’t confirm any of this, I wasn’t there for most of it. But the truth of the matter is that I was born the crown prince of Geralti, and the rumors had already started that I was a changeling. 

Kenzilon the Golden Boy. Named for the child of the Sun himself, who gifted the world with magic, warmth, music, and poetry. “Kenzilon the Fairy Prince” divisive before I even knew who I was.

My strangeness as I grew didn’t help. 

I was thought sweet, with my baby curls and bright eyes. I laughed with everyone and seemed to want to drink everything in- it was when I began to talk that people grew weary of me. I’d pull the nurses’ ear to my little mouth and whisper to them gleefully. 

Sometimes it was some tale I’d spun, “Did you know there’s an old crab at the bottom of the sea, covered in crust, guarding a silver pearl?” And they’d coo and call me clever. But sometimes, I’d lean across my mother’s lap, and tell her lady in waiting that her husband wouldn’t recover from his illness in time for midsummer, turning the poor woman white as a sheet. 

“Why did you tell him that?” She’d ask my mother, wringing her kerchief.   
“I didn’t tell him anything” my mother would raise your eyebrows “He’s playing some silly game Lamry, don’t take him too seriously. You’ll flatter him.” 

I was seven. I woke the next week to the gray blue light of morning silhouetting Lamry at the foot of my bed.   
“How did you know that?” She asked quietly, her voice raw. “I never told your mother he was sick. Did you overhear me?”   
I probably did overhear something. Nothing else explains it looking back. At the time, I said nothing.   
She looked down at her hands, the midsummer light catching on her cheeks, glistening with tears.   
“He died last night.” She choked out. “You are a changeling aren’t you? A fairy prince. We’re all blessed, or cursed I suppose.”  
What could I have said? 

I was in trouble then. My mother sat me in her room and rapped on my hands. “When you spin tales, people talk. You love to think you’re so special don’t you, but you never think.” Another sharp whack with the reed.   
“I’m sorry” I said, hoping if I insisted in my tone, this time it would stop. But sincerity had nothing to do with it, and neither did my title.   
“You never think. All you want is attention, is that it? Well I have attention for you.” I thought she’d hit me properly then, but she did worse. She got down to my eye level.   
“You’re not a crown prince, that’s something I can take from you in a second if you’re too much of a problem. What you are is my burden. Mine. Make yourself too heavy and I’ll do something about it. Do what you’re for. Understand?”   
Lamry was sent away and I never heard of her again.

When the sun catches in my brown eyes so they light up gold, and someone jokes of my fairy blood, I turn to the shade to block it out. 

It was similar with the other children in the palace. Quick to make friends, easy to charm, but hard to keep them. My affinity for storytelling also quickly created problems. I didn’t mean to lie, but I told of tunnels under the castle leading to secret rooms full of exotic animals, and I’d see how their faces lit up. When they asked to see them and I said it wasn’t actually there, the trust was gone. But it burned through friendships for most of the playmates my own age. It left me with two options for company- my tutors, and my father. 

I loved my father more than just about anything. His skin smelling of olive oil and hearth smoke, with freckles leftover from boyhood. I loved the way his stern face cracked into playful smiles that were just for me. I heard the other children echo their parents' nickname of him Storm King; but I never understood why. I only knew how it felt when he gently lifted me onto his broad shoulders, and called me his "Golden Boy." How I'd feel when he read the old poems to me on nights he could get away, and his commanding voice donning a new cloak for every character. How firm his touch on my crown of fiery curls, when he told me I was just like him. Storm King didn't suit the man I knew as a child, however infrequently I could be at his side. 

"Do you think I'm a fairy?" I asked him, crying, after Lamry went away. I was in his lap, just the two of us in his private study. He considered it with a "hmm" somewhere between humoring a child, and taking me seriously.   
"No. I don't think so." He stated it firmly.   
"Why not?" I insisted, panicked but somehow indignant. He chuckled at this.  
"Do you want to be a fairy?"  
"No." My face turned hot from being teased. "But everyone seems to think it."   
He grew solemn very quickly, and brushed the hair from my face.   
"I know you're not a fairy, Kenzi, because you look just like me at your age. Look at your sun spots, the noble bridge of your nose. Compare your eyes to mine in my old portraits in the east wing."   
I ran my small fingers over my seven year old face, trying to feel my father in it.  
"No, there's no doubt in my mind Golden Boy. You're all mine." 

My only real friends in my earliest memories were my tutors. They were the ones who saw me at my best- inquisitive, talkative, curious and excited about the world- and got to avoid the less pleasant aspects of my strangeness. The nurses certainly didn’t delight in me when I refused to get my head wet for no apparent reason, leaving them to wrestle me into the bath until I was at least nine. The scholars, however, were delighted by my attraction to books. Perhaps they would watch me grow into an academic king, funding libraries and science over war and politics. A high hope, but one I heard of more times than I could count. 

But, in a way I could barely recognize in myself at the time, there was a constant feeling I now know to be loneliness. Long hours by myself with my toy swords, and council of stuffed toys I loved down to pieces. Days spent with nothing but songs I would invent as I sang them to fill the halls with sound. Winters and springs spent hidden in some corner with a piece of the vast palace library. 

Even when I grew a little older- when I made some friendships and understood how disarming I could be, I was kept at arm's length or perhaps kept them at length on my own.

That was until my twelfth birthday, when I was gifted a horse. 

A bright autumn morning, the wet dirt’s perfect smell rising into my nose, and the sound of my new boots breaking the dawn earth made me feel like a young man, rather than a boy. I rounded the corner and broke into a smile. A clydesdale, with broad sturdy hooves, stood just behind the barn door.

I approached, slowly. I had always been afraid of horses, much to my parent’s dismay. I admired them, but was wary to get too close. Animals were like people, to me. I didn’t know this creature. I tried to be excited but my uneasiness was clear.   
“He’s beautiful!” I declared, from a distance.   
“She.” My mother corrected. “You’ll have to learn to ride eventually, and we thought a mare would be easier.”   
It was meant to tease me, a little. I had been expected to begin learning to ride when I was closer to nine, but a steed had bucked me onto my back and I refused to get on a horse’s back from then on. This gift was a compromise, I knew.   
“She’s extremely mild tempered.” My father laughed.   
“Sire” a court boy stepped in, looking down apologetically.  
My father nodded at him in acknowledgment, dropping his smile. “I‘ll leave you and your new friend to get to know each other.” And he left, the boy following behind.   
I looked back at the horse, judging her temperament for myself. 

“Do I get to name her?” I asked, after what felt like several minutes of staring into the marble of her eyes.   
“What?” A new voice. I turned to my mother, but she was gone. 

In her place was a boy I had never seen before, hauling a bale of hay. I stepped back in surprise, prompting a huff from the mare, but she didn’t startle with me.   
“I uhh, I wanted to know if she had a name.”   
He stared at me, almost as confused as I was. He had pale hair, brown but almost silver in the barn light, and stood several inches taller than me. He couldn’t have been more than a year my senior, but I was short for my age.   
“I’ve been calling her Lady, but she’s a gift for the prince so I imagine he’ll name her when he gets here.” He wiped his forehead as he spoke, tired from hauling the hay. There was something about the way he moved that stayed me, and I forgot about the horse.   
“I haven’t met you before.” I managed to say. He smiled and put down the hay, extending a work-gloved hand.   
“I’m Rory! Ronashary, but I’ve always thought it was too long.” I shook it, pleased by his friendliness.   
“Like the moon boy” I exclaimed in recognition. He laughed, awkwardly. “Yeah but no jokes about it. I’ve heard them already.” I instantly felt bad for mentioning it. How unoriginal of me. He’d be tired of me already now, and I hadn’t made a new friend in a long time. Desperate to change the subject and not burn this, I looked back at the horse. 

“I think Lady is a great name.”   
“I’m not too attached to it” he said “I don’t know how to name anything”  
“No, I think it suits her” I turned around, and without thinking of it touched her nose. She huffed again, startling me and I jumped. Rory laughed, and I liked the sound of it, even as I was embarrassed by my fear.   
“You’re not going to make a very good stable hand if you’re scared of horses.” He smiled. He wasn’t mean about it. I had been expecting more teasing.  
“I uh-“  
“It’s ok, you’ll get used to them. I can teach you how to not spook them if you’d like. It’s better than a hoof to the ribs, which is how you learn the hard way.”   
I couldn’t help but smile, he made me feel at ease. But my throat rose in panic that he didn’t know who I was. Another lie I accidentally told. I stood in silence, suddenly too nervous to find the words to correct him.

“She’s a pretty good start though, for learning about horses. She doesn’t spook easily. We got her because the prince is apparently scared of horses too. I think if the prince can be scared of horses, then there’s no reason you can’t.”  
“I uhh…” He stood there, endeared by my bashfulness for a moment, before looking at the horse, then back at me. He looked down at my boots, shiny and not made for working. His smile dropped and his eyebrows rose.   
“Oh I uh-“ he sputtered out, realizing.   
I grabbed his hand again, and shook it, a bit too enthusiastically. Then, a bit too loud “Hi. My name is Kenzi. It’s really nice to meet you.”   
“I’m so sorry I-“   
“No! It’s great! I am scared of horses. They’re very big.” I said it too fast, still shaking his hand. 

The panic in both our eyes locked into each other, which shattered, in a moment, into laughter. 

This is how I met Rory, my companion. I couldn’t imagine then, everything he would become to me - or everything I might become to myself.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading. This is chapter 1 of a longer piece I’m working on. Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy it. This is my first time posting original work online, oop.


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